WGST Course Affiliation Criteria

If you would like to offer a course that counts toward the WGS majors or minor, please see the course affiliation criteria below.

COURSE AFFILIATION CRITERIA FOR WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES

Only courses taught by Women’s and Gender Studies faculty affiliates are eligible to count toward the Women’s and Gender Studies majors and minor. In considering whether to approve a course as a Women’s and Gender Studies course, the WGS program employs the following criteria. 

A. Course Pedagogy: The course should foster a climate of mutual inquiry and exchange of ideas among and between faculty and students. They should encourage students to reflect on how the issues of gender in the course are produced in everyday life and in larger contexts such as the social, political, psychological, cultural, economic, historical, and the technological. They should encourage students to develop critical thinking skills, offer them the opportunity to articulate their own positions on the issues raised by the course, and allow for an incorporation of feminist perspectives in assignments.

B. Course Content: Will be one of the following two types:

Course Type A: Should be a combination of: 

• Content: The course should have as its central focus issues of gender, issues of special concern to women, and the diversity of women’s lives, e.g., race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, age, ability, from cross-cultural perspectives.
• Scholarship/Methodology/Theory: The course should present and employ recent feminist scholarship, methodologies, concepts, and analyses so that students can acquire an understanding of the multiplicity of feminist approaches and perspectives and can develop their own informed positions on the issues raised in the class.

Course Type B: Must examine the social construction of gender AND address at least one of the following themes:

• Address the intersections of various markers of identity, including but not limited to gender, race, class, sexualities, and age.
• Critically examine cultural assumptions about women, gender, and/or sexualities, e.g. the gender assumptions in the traditional methodologies, theories, and research of particular disciplines.
• Explore the production of knowledge, art, literature, etc. as it reflects gendered, raced, classed, etc. experiences.
• Equip students to identify and critically analyze systems of power and privilege.
• Focus on providing information about women and/or sexual minorities, their influence, roles, experiences, history, and contributions.  

To apply for course affiliation as part of the Women’s and Gender Studies curriculum, please send a detailed course description or syllabus, including the list of readings and a description of your teaching methods to the Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, Dr. Ina Seethaler at iseethale@coastal.edu.

Special Cross-List Courses: 

1. Some courses not officially "affiliated" with WGS can count toward WGS credit for students who make special arrangements with the course instructor and the WGS coordinator to do readings and/or projects (e.g., their course term paper) on WGS topics. Such courses are designated "Special Cross-List" courses. To determine whether a course is eligible for this status, send the following to the director of WGS: 

• A copy of the course syllabus and a brief statement detailing what students would be required to do for WGS credit;
• A brief statement explaining how the course with the additional requirement meets the guidelines for conventional affiliation. If your course is approved by WGS for special cross-list credit, please include on the regular version of the syllabus a statement describing the WGS option.

2. If there are many sections of the proposed affiliated course but not all sections of the course can be taken for WGS credit, please send a copy of the syllabus to the director of WGS. In this case, students enrolling in this section of the course will be given the option to take the course for WGS credit. If your course is approved by WGS for special cross-list credit, please include on the regular version of the syllabus a statement describing the WGS option.

Please send all inquiries and information to the Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program, Dr. Ina Seethaler at iseethale@coastal.edu.